


we are not what you think we are (we are golden)

by superlyns



Category: Super Junior, Super Junior-M
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 01:16:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2291588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superlyns/pseuds/superlyns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>kyuhyun slowly gets to know his roommate — or so he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are not what you think we are (we are golden)

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for jesstoast as part of the qmidayeveryday exchange of 2014. originally posted here: http://qmidayeveryday.livejournal.com/21617.html#comments

"Joomyuk," Kyuhyun pokes his back with his foot, "Joomyuk, wake up." Another poke. "I've got homemade kimbap." 

That's the magic word that seems to bring Joomyuk out of what seemed to be a very deep sleep despite the fact that he was lying on the floor, curled up around an opened suitcase.

"Tuna?" Joomyuk asks in a drowsy voice.

"Of course." Kyuhyun answers automatically as he retrieves the food container from his backpack and hands a roll of kimbap to Joomyuk.

"What time is it?" Joomyuk asks between bites of kimbap.

"A little past 7pm. Figured I shouldn't let you sleep this early."

"Right, right," Joomyuk says quickly, "sorry about that, I didn't mean to fall asleep on the floor. It just… happened." Kyuhyun just nods, too focused on his own roll of kimbap to answer with words. "I just had an exhausting weekend back home and didn't get any sleep on the flight." Kyuhyun nods again and Joomyuk decides to just leave it at that.

They eat in silence after that and it's not until Joomyuk's finished with his roll and unpacking his suitcase at snail's speed, clearly still half-asleep, that Kyuhyun says: "Did you do something with your hair? It's… different." He makes a weird hand motion in the air, somewhat in the direction of Joomyuk's hair. At that, Joomyuk seems to freeze in his movements, almost dropping the stack of clothes he'd been carrying on the floor.

"Um, I just—"

"A fringe! That's it!" Kyuhyun interrupts with a goofy grin on his face. Kyuhyun's already back to focusing on his textbook before Joomyuk has a chance to say anything. Instead, he grabs his styling wax and steps in front of the mirror, quickly rearranging his hair into its usual style.

 

*

 

"I still can't believe how lucky you got with your roommate assignment," Changmin sighs over lunch the next day. "You don't deserve it."

Kyuhyun almost stops mid-bite but decides otherwise. Changmin can wait.

"What do you mean 'I don't deserve it'," he says a few seconds later, after swallowing the tonkatsu, "I'm most probably going to be elected VP of the compsci club by the end of my sophomore year, making me their youngest VP ever, I was carrying a 3.9 in high school, I've been invited to two different honors societies and—"

"You forgot that you were also president of the high school division of Sistar's fanclub. Which, _high school division_ , I didn't even know this was a thing."

"It's a very legitimate thing," Kyuhyun huffs, "and I totally deserve that roommate assignment, end of the story."

Changmin sighs again and comes around. "Okay, _fine_. Real talk though: who knew freshmen visual comm majors could get so busy? He's spending what, 70 hours a week in the studio? That's some dedication."

Here's the deal: Kyuhyun had moved in his double room at the Hongik University dorms five weeks ago now and, so far, his roommate Joomyuk seemed to spend very little time in their room and an insane amount of time working on assignments. Once, Joomyuk had spent three days straight in the studio finishing up some mock-up or whatever; Kyuhyun wasn't really following. This weekend had been different: Joomyuk had flown back home to China for an express visit to one of his relatives. 

Whatever the reason, Kyuhyun couldn't possibly complain about the situation. It gave him the opportunity to participate in Starcraft campaigns until 3am and other private activities, without anyone complaining about his night-owl habits. It was a sweet deal, despite whatever Ahra said about "missing out on bonding with someone from another country" and "the importance of hanging out with your freshman year roommate". 

 

*

 

As Kyuhyun's first semester as a freshman goes by, Joomyuk's presence remains the same in his life: barely there. Kyuhyun's too busy trying to get a 4.0 GPA to really notice and instead enjoys the calmness of his room as he spends countless hours on his Intro to Pyhton class project.

He's trying to figure out why his code worked — a change from the usual figuring out why his code didn't work but still as tedious — when Ryeowook knocks on the door and enters the room. Ah, right. Movie night, he'd almost forgotten. There's still code swimming in front of his eyes when he gets up to grab his backpack.

"Where's Joomyuk?"

"Not here, as usual," Kyuhyun says weakly, "he said he had some work to do in the computer lab."

Ryeowook frowns and stares at Kyuhyun.

"Kyuhyun," he starts carefully, "I was there just 20 minutes ago, I haven't seen him."

"Well maybe he left," Kyuhyun says.

"In the past three months I've never seen Joomyuk spend more than an hour in any of the visual communications studios."

Kyuhyun stares back, expecting Ryeowook to go on.

"What," Kyuhyun says as carefully, "do you mean."

"Whatever he's doing when he's away from your room, it's definitely not working in the studios."

Kyuhyun frowns.

"Well, it's not like I need to be aware of all of his movements, he can do whatever he pleases," Kyuhyun grumbles. "Maybe you're just never in the studios at the same time as him."

"I really don't think that's possible—"

"Can we just leave already?" Kyuhyun cuts abruptly. "We're gonna be late for the movie."

Ryeowook nods in silent agreement and follows Kyuhyun out of his room.

 

*

 

Kyuhyun's third-wheeling on Changmin and Victoria's date — _again_. They're at this new trendy patbingsu place on Garosu-gil that's over-priced and that will probably close come November once the hype and the sunny weather have both died down. At least, the berry patbingsu they've been digging in is good.

"You should really get a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend," Changmin says, " _or_ , at least, go on dates."

Kyuhyun groans, spoon digging into the bowl in front of him to catch some red beans.

"I'm not saying that you should go all extreme like your roommate and never enjoy a quiet night in in your dorm room but you should like, go out more. With people that aren't us. Or Ryeowook."

"I'm already missing out on some 'eye-opening cultural exchange with my Chinese roommate'," Kyuhyun snorts, quoting what his sister had told me a few days back on the phone,  "can't you just let me fully enjoy my non-existent freshman social life?"

"But it's half the fun of  going to university!" Victoria exclaims herself. "Also, you should be nicer to your roommate, it's hard moving to a different country," she says sternly. Changmin nods  vigorously in agreement.

"I'm being nice! It's just difficult to do when I barely see him three times a week, okay?"

Kyuhyun is _totally_ being nice to Joomyuk; Victoria clearly doesn't know what she's talking about. In the past two weeks, Kyuhyun has:

1\. left a container filled with 6 homemade tuna kimbap rolls on Joomyuk's desk;  
1.1 had said container returned empty to his own desk the next day, with a sunshine-shaped sticker note stuck on the lid;  
2\. been extra careful as to not make any noise when he came back from his calculus class at 1pm and found Joomyuk fast asleep in his bed _and_ under the covers — a very rare occurrence that Kyuhyun had only witnessed a few times so far, which is why he had let Joomyuk sleep instead of lecturing him on appropriate sleep schedules;  
3\. stuck the same sunshine-shaped post-it on an energy drink bottle that he had left on Joomyuk's pillow after he had written "DRINK ME  >:|" on it.

See, Kyuhyun's been real nice. A total sweetheart. Not that he actually plans on telling any of this to Victoria, let alone Changmin. He'd never be able to live down the "DRINK ME >:|" post-it.

 

*

 

A few weeks before finals week and the start of the summer vacation, Joomyuk starts being around a lot more. It's unsettling for Kyuhyun who had gotten used to coming back to an empty dorm room after class and blasting Sistar's latest mini-album on his speakers.

This leads to a lot of awkward fumbling around when the two of them get up at the same time for class and have to take a shower — which, Kyuhyun is pretty sure is the kind of thing you usually figure out the first week of the school year but well, unusual roommates situation and all.

There's even one evening where they find themselves having dinner together — take-out chicken that Joomyuk himself had actually brought back to the dorm, fully surprising Kyuhyun who had been chained at his desk the whole afternoon trying to finish his math homework.

"Wow, are you actually bringing _me_ food?"

"I needed a break from my final project and Ryeowook was with me in the studio and mentioned that you'd been complaining non-stop about your math homework on Snapchat," Joomyuk paused. "I really don't think that sending Ryeowook Snapchats of your problem sets with the caption "please solve it" is going to help. Ryeowook told me he almost got a failing score on his math high school final exam and—"

"Are you going to open the boxes of chicken or not?" Kyuhyun asks impatiently, prying the plastic bags from Joomyuk's hands.

Kyuhyun pulls up the latest episode of his current favorite historical k-drama and his laptop and props himself on the floor, back against his bed. Joomyuk sits down so close that Kyuhyun figures there'd been no difference if he was _actually_ sitting on his lap.

"I can't see your laptop screen well if I sit far away," Joomyuk explains as he grabs a piece of chicken from one of the opened boxes they've set in front of them.

Kyuhyun's enjoyment of the episode is — sort of, not really — ruined by Joomyuk's incessant translation questions.

"How do you expect me to know all this… ancient Korean?" Joomyuk asks frustratedly.

"It's not _ancient_ ," Kyuhyun answers exasperatedly, "it's part of a thousand years old cultural heritage—"

"Which I clearly don't have since I wasn't born in Korea," Joomyuk says smoothly.

" _Still_ ," Kyuhyun says, grasping at straws, "as someone studying in our beautiful nation, you should—"

"Next time, we're going to watch a Chinese historical drama and we'll see who needs translation help," Joomyuk retorts. He actually looks hurt.

Oh. Kyuhyun realizes that this is exactly what his sister, Victoria and Changmin had warned him about. This realization also serves him to prove that of his friends are all way too over-invested in his relationship with his roommate — not that there really is a relationship to speak of so, _potential_ relationship.

At this moment, Kyuhyun almost finds himself missing all these times were Joomyuk wasn't around and he was able to enjoy his drama in piece. He can't bring himself to really do it though, he has to admit that having company is nice, for a change? Free fried chicken is also always nice.

"I'm… sorry?" Kyuhyun admits quietly.

"It's okay," Joomyuk says staring at him in a way that makes Kyuhyun wonder if it's really okay. Should he say something more? "It's not like I've given you a lot of opportunities to get to know me more. You couldn't know that I actually did not take any 'Korean for historical dramas' classes in high school," Joomyuk chuckles.

A couple of minutes later, Kyuhyun starts ranting about some minor plotline that actually really happened in history. Kyuhyun trails off when he notices that Joomyuk is staring at him intently again. There's a fond look on his face that Kyuhyun's pretty sure isn't from listening to his lengthy explanations of royal rivalries in the Joseon era. Kyuhyun is disconcerted by that look and just stares back, his breath catching in his throat. It's not like he hadn't noticed before that Joomyuk's good-looking it's just. Staring at him for a long period of time makes him realize just how good-looking he is.

It's the oldest build-up in the world. 

"And I'm sorry for this," Joomyuk says quickly before leaning in.

It's the oldest not-so-much-of-a-line in the world.

Kyuhyun is hesitant at first but presses in closer when Joomyuk starts to pull back. He shifts to get closer to Joomyuk and upsets the coffee table on which they'd set their food, the container of spicy sauce landing directly on Joomyuk's lap. This is their cue to break the kiss.

"If you wanted me out of my pants already, all you had to do was ask," Joomyuk says teasingly. 

"Shut up," Kyuhyun retorts, leaning in to kiss Joomyuk again.

"I really need to get out of these jeans though," Joomyuk points out after they've made out for another couple of minutes.

They end up watching the end of the episode snuggled on Kyuhyun's bed after Joomyuk's has changed out of his stained jeans. In all honesty, Kyuhyun has to admit that he'll have to rewatch those last 15 minutes because he didn't really pay attention.

 

*

 

The weeks leading up to finals week are spent in a blur of intense revisions and cramming for the both of them. Kyuhyun hears from Ryeowook that Joomyuk is spending more time in the studios than before and that clears out some of the suspicion he'd had before.

They still manage to fall into a routine where they eat dinner take-out together in their room on weekdays and hang out as much as they can afford to on weekends.

 

*

 

"So, do you have any plans for the summer?" Joomyuk asks as they're walking back to the dorms from Shinchon the Saturday before finals weeks begins. Kyuhyun had shown Joomyuk his favorite barbecue restaurant of the area, making him promise to only share this gem with worthy individuals.

"Traveling around the country to visit my relatives, as most summers. And then I'm going to Taiwan with Ryeowook at the end of the summer. Mostly for the food." 

Kyuhyun almost doesn't notice the way Joomyuk tenses when he answers.

"Ah, right," Joomyuk says a bit forced, "Taiwan's great, I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

"Are you going back home?"

"I'm not sure yet at the moment," Joomyuk says slowly, "my plans are still pretty vague."

The atmosphere is weirdly tense and Kyuhyun knows better than to press the topic any more. He spots a convenience store ahead of them and takes it as an opportunity to change the topic and go back to their previous carefree atmosphere.

"Do you wanna get ice cream?"

"I'm pretty sure we just ate twice our weight in samgyeopsal but why not," Joomyuk answers with a smile of his own and Kyuhyun considers his mission a success.

Joomyuk gets a strawberry popsicle, claiming that it's the lightest and healthiest option possible, clearly judging Kyuhyun's choice to get a red bean ice cream sandwich.

"They're delicious, you should really try them," Kyuhyun holds out his ice cream in front of Joomyuk's face, missing his nose by a few centimetres only.

"I'm fine with this for now, thanks," Joomyuk says sheepishly.

"You're missing out on something truly great," Kyuhyun sniffs out as he inhales some more of his ice cream sandwich.

Kyuhyun takes the opportunity of an empty backstreet to kiss Joomyuk after they've finished their ice cream.

"Your lips taste like strawberry," Kyuhyun mumbles against Joomyuk's lips.

"See, that strawberry popsicle wasn't such a 'terrible and unoriginal choice'," Joomyuk grins, quoting back what Kyuhyun had said to him just a little while ago. 

"I never said I liked the taste," Kyuhyun huffs out.

"For the record, you don't taste like red bean," Joomyuk adds without paying attention to Kyuhyun's complaint.

 

*

 

Somehow, they go from walking next to each other at the right distance for their fingers to bump every once in a while to let-me-ravish-you-right-here-right-now in the time it takes them to enter campus grounds and get to their dorm room. Kyuhyun is pinned against the bathroom door, Joomyuk's lips doing wonders on his neck — Kyuhyun will undoubtedly regret his life choices when he realizes that he needs to wear a scarf or a turtleneck mid-June the next morning but _whatever_.

"Kyuhyun," Joomyuk breathes out against Kyuhyun's lips, "do you, um—" 

Joomyuk lowers his head and stares down, eyes locked on his own hand grabbing Kyuhyun's belt buckle. Kyuhyun blinks once, twice and all thoughts of appropriate mid-June fashion are forgotten once Joomyuk takes his hesitation for a yes and unbuckles his belt. He makes quick work of the button and zipper of Kyuhyun's pants and lets his fingers trail on the outline of Kyuhyun's dick.

"Come on," Kyuhyun hisses, "don't be a tease."

Joomyuk ignores his pleas, opting to get down on his knees instead. He rubs his hand excruciatingly slowly against the cotton of Kyuhyun's underwear and he faintest touch of  Joomyuk's fingers against the tip of his dick has Kyuhyun's hips bucking forward.

"Hey," Joomyuk protests, "don't break my nose with that dick."

Kyuhyun snorts. "I'm charmed that you seem to think that this is my dick's best abilities. I would love to prove you wrong but I might never get a chance if you keep on being like—" Kyuhyun's voice cracks. Joomyuk has just wrapped his lips around his dick, head starting to bob up and down at a steady slow pace.

 

*

 

The next day, Kyuhyun winces as he sits down at the table Changmin has commandeered for their last afternoon of cramming at Tom N Toms.

"Ugh. Zhou Mi's one skinny bastard."

"Do I want to know?" Changmin starts tentatively.

"Probably not," Kyuhyun answers quickly. "Why did you choose this place, I can see Fuzzle and Ho Bar from here. It reminds me of a time where I used to be able to drink on weekends instead of studying non-stop," he says with an over exaggerated melancholic tone in his voice.

"Actually, don't change the topic, I kind of want to know."

"Do _you_ want to know or does Victoria asked you to come back with juicy details?"

"Both of us," Changmin admits sheepishly.

The thing is, Kyuhyun has known both of them since he started high school and there's never really been anything he's hidden from them. Spilling the beans about the past night isn't so difficult once he gets past the awkwardness of speaking out about his sexuality in a public place.

"—and well, he has really skinny hips and they were digging really hard into my thighs when we— you know. Hence the wincing," Kyuhyun concludes. "End of the story."

"So are you like, together or?" Changmin prods once again.

"We both figured that with summer break coming up and me being away from Seoul for most of it, it'd be better to not… start anything _too_ serious. We'll figure it out once school gets back in session, again?" Kyuhyun doesn't really want to dwell on it. "Let's just focus on finals for now, ok?"

 

*

 

Kyuhyun and Ryeowook fly to Taiwan at the end of the summer vacation. Their first evening there is spent at the night markets, trying out every food they can possibly order with their subpar Chinese and generous use of hand motions. They drag themselves into a cab after their food marathon and Kyuhyun is convinced that he's going to explode.

"I've never eaten this much in my life before, and God knows I've never restrained myself."

Ryeowook hums in agreement and Kyuhyun concludes by shooting a glance at him that he's just too exhausted from _all the food_ to speak.

"That's a nice song," Ryeowook finally says a few minutes later, completely out of the blue. Kyuhyun hadn't really been paying attention at what was playing on the radio — some catchy c-pop tune, apparently. "That guy sure can sing," Ryeowook adds. "Definitely not just some manufactured autotuned song. There's some nice vocal training behind that."

Kyuhyun's musical education had stopped abruptly in freshman year of high school when the leader of the church youth group he was in had politely told his parents that they'd found a new clarinet player to replace him. Apparently, Kyuhyun had really messed up that last Sunday during mass and it was better for everyone that he just stuck to memorizing the Bible. Kyuhyun could only agree silently with Ryeowook — the guy had, after all, 10 years of experience in choral singing and was pursuing a music minor in addition to his already time-consuming visual communications major; Kyuhyun was, in comparison, nothing but a lowly computer science major.

The songs comes up so often on the radio during the days they're in Taiwan that they decide to Shazam it. Zhou Mi is the name that they can finally attach to the voice, along with a title and an album cover — a collage of various beach pictures and signs written in Thai. Kyuhyun even goes as far as buying a copy of the album that one time they're at the mall and they walk past a CD store. Ryeowook laughs at him.

"You don't even _listen_ to CDs, what are you going to do with this? Use it as a coaster?"

Kyuhyun doesn't waver. "I'm going to bring it back home, import it on my laptop and listen to it, what else?"

"As if," Ryeowook snickers.

Ryeowook ends up being right. Kyuhyun stuffs the CD at the bottom of his suitcase and piles up clothes and food he's bringing back to Korea on top of it. The CD ends up in his desk drawer when he unpacks the day they get back because the only thing he wants to do at that time is crash into his bed and get a good night's sleep before the first day of the new semester. Goddamn 8am classes should really be forbidden.

 

*

 

Sistar's comeback coincides with the first week of class and Kyuhyun has to miss his first lab of the semester to go cheer on them at Show Champion. Things go as smoothly as they can possibly go when it comes to lining up for a music show at 5am and Kyuhyun relishes in the fact that for the first time in four years, he doesn't have to be the one managing the line. As much as he had loved his position of president of the high school division of Sistar's fanclub — awesome perks like unique autographed polaroids of the members for his 18th birthday, he kept Hyorin's in his wallet — having to be at the studios by 4am even if the middle of winter to manage a line of several hundreds of crazed fans wasn't something he really missed. 

A van stops in front of the studio and Kyuhyun knows better than to start screaming and pushing towards it like a dozen teenage boys are starting to do. This is clearly not Sistar's van — fake fans, he adds mentally. Some unknown rookie steps out of the van and the crowd dies down as quick as it had started. Kyuhyun almost instantly focuses back on his Cookie Run challenge. Keyword almost because there's something weirdly familiar with the guy who's just stepped onto the curb despite the snapback pulled low on his face and the non-descript XL grey hoodie thrown on his skinny frame.

It can't be. Joomyuk?! Kyuhyun almost cries out the name but stops himself in his tracks. He's probably mistaken. Lots of people dress like this these days — an afternoon out in Garosu-gil with Changmin last weekend had confirmed that trends spread out extremely fast in Sinsa and that seeing five guys with the exact same outfit wasn't uncommon at all. 

Kyuhyun had tried to express his opinion to Changmin — who was, coincidentally, wearing the same shirt and shoes as a guy sitting two tables over — but he had quickly been interrupted. Pretty much as soon as he had started speaking about how "fashion isn't really fashion if everyone wears the same thing and is happy with copying the latest outfit deemed 'hot' in some hipster magazine", Changmin had opened his mouth.

"You're talking about fashion? Really, you?" Kyuhyun had reconsidered his life choices at that and left it there. Changmin had swiftly switched the topic towards that new beer place he'd discovered with Minho the evening before. Their anju selection was apparently to die for.

Kyuhyun brushes the thought away and gets back to Cookie Run — no way he's letting Changmin take 1st place _again_ in the rankings this week.

 

*

 

Everything crashes down together once Kyuhyun gets inside the studio. 

Several things happen at once:  
1\. the backtrack that starts to resonate inside the studio sounds _very_ familiar to Kyuhyun;  
2\. the guy who just got on stage has to be Joomyuk's twin brother, there's no other way;  
3\. the words "Hi! I'm Zhou Mi, this is my Korean debut, please support me!" reach Kyuhyun's ears and. What. _What._

The performance goes by like a blur in front of Kyuhyun's eyes. He doesn't even enjoy the song — a Korean version of the one he had enjoyed so much in Taiwan — and barely spares a glance at Joomyuk/Zhou Mi.

 

*

 

Kyuhyun goes back to his dorm feeling numb. He drags himself out of the room and  goes to this 4pm class, putting all of his energy in his note-taking in an attempt to clear his mind. It's unsurprisingly not effective. The only thing he achieves during his 90 minutes class is crafting out a plan.

The plan is simple enough: Kyuhyun is not going to tell Zhou Mi and he's going to avoid him for as long as he can. His favorite way to deal with confusing issues has always been avoidance. Kyuhyun has never been big on confrontation so he's hoping that dropping a few (subtle) hints here and there will make the whole process easier. He's dealing with the entire ordeal with as much composure as he can, trying hard not to let any emotions filter in. Kyuhyun has never been big on dealing with emotions either. 

Spending all of class and the walk back home thinking about the trainwreck that was his day, Kyuhyun's thoughts inevitably drift off towards what his sister would say if she knew. Especially if she knew about his plans to avoid all confrontations and explanations request whatsoever.

His fingers hit speed dial 3 on their own accord.

"You know how last month I was telling you that bonding with my roommate was one of the best decisions I've ever made and that you were right the entire time?" When Kyuhyun had went back home for the first half of summer vacation, there had been quite a few evenings spent drinking with Ahra during which he'd shared about his (now _very much_ existent) relationship with his roommate.

"Yes?" Ahra answers, uncertainty tainting her voice.

"I was wrong. You were wrong. I regret everything."

"And now you feel hurt because you thought there was trust between you two and yet he never told you?" Ahra concludes after he's explained the situation to her.

"I— I hate when you do the thing and put words on my feelings," Kyuhyun sighs.

"This is why I'm your older sister: to teach you about life. Don't complain."

"Even if I admit that I'm feeling hurt, I'm still not going to do the confrontation thing. Maybe next time after another one of your enlightening life lesson."

"I have hope that one of these days you'll deal with your problems like a real adult instead of being such an ostrich. You can't avoid—"

"I'm hanging up right now, bye noona, love you," Kyuhyun says cheekily as he ends the call.

Well. He's still going forward with what he had planned whether or not there are trust issues that need some actual, mature discussion and explanations.

 

*

 

It takes Kyuhyun a tremendous amount of willpower to enter Hottracks and actually grab a copy of Zhou Mi's single — the cover of the single is a collage of pictures of himself, pasted upon what appears to be a pink and yellow gradient background. There's an overall charm to it and Kyuhyun is ready to bet that he designed it himself.

When he goes to the register, the only other people also holding a copy of the single are all females between the ages of 12 and 16. Kyuhyun wonders what on Earth makes lanky Chinese boys attractive to pre-teens before reality crashes back into him: Cho Kyuhyun, President of Sistar's high school division fanclub for 2 years, really shouldn't have an opinion on fan demographics. He pays for the single, takes the subway back to campus and leaves the CD case on Zhou Mi's bed. There, perfect subtle way to avoid confrontation. Maybe not so subtle but definitely a 100% confrontation-proof.

Kyuhyun doesn't need to make a whole lot of efforts to avoid Zhou Mi during the days that follow: he's as busy as ever — except this time Kyuhyun knows it's because he's busy taking over the Korean music charts and attending magazine photoshoots in Myeongdong, not that he checked any blogs. He usually crashes into their room after 3am, tumbling into his sheets still clothed. Kyuhyun doesn't even know whether or not he noticed the copy of the single he left on his bed. Whatever.

 

*

 

Kyuhyun takes his plan to the next level five days after Show Champion and braves the maze that are Chinese websites with a lot of help from Google translate. He's only half-certain that his order went through after he presses 'confirm'.

His doubts are cleared two days later when he goes to pick up a package at his dorm's office lobby. There it is: Zhou Mi's debut single, released two years ago. This time, he leaves it in one of Zhou Mi's sneakers.

 

*

 

Victoria declares a crisis situation when she runs into Kyuhyun the next day and instantly seems to _know_ that something is wrong.

"Sometimes I wonder if you and my sister aren't the same person."

"Well, um," Victoria hesitates. "You know how your sister's was also a law major and I've been looking for a tutor? Well—"

"Don't say anything more. It's actually worse that you're two different persons both after my own misery."

"I beg to differ, we only want your joy and happiness!" Victoria says with a huge grin plastered on her face. "Stop by the Twosome+ near the campus gates at 6pm, we need to do something about this."

She leaves right after that, leaving Kyuhyun with no other choice but to show up. Changmin and Ryeowook were apparently also invited to this lovely meeting and Kyuhyun wants to crawl into a hole as soon as he gets to the 2nd floor where they're all seated. Or drown himself into his iced americano. Whatever's faster.

 

*

 

**from: victoria | 8:51pm**  
 _btw you do know that zhou mi has had a dedication for you in his past 2 releases, right?_

**from: kyuhyun | 8:53pm**  
 _what. do you mean._

**from: victoria | 8:54pm**  
 _oh KUIXIAN_

**from: kyuhyun | 8:55pm**  
 _who's kuixian, i'm confused. you should know better that my chinese name is guixian??????_

**from: changmin | 8:56pm**  
 _i'm laughing so hard that i might fall off the bed. DO YOU REALLY HAVE NO IDEA._

**from: kyuhyun | 8:57pm**  
 _what is everyone on about tonight???_

**from: kyuhyun | 8:59pm**  
 _also did you sneak victoria in your dorm room again????? one of these days you'll get evicted i swear._

**from: changmin | 9:45pm**  
 _when did i ever mention that this was my door room's bed? ;)_

 

*

 

When the confrontation inevitably happens, it's very anticlimactic and definitely not how Kyuhyun had imagined it would go — for all that he wanted to avoid the confrontation at all costs, he did spent a lot of time thinking up how it would go in his head.

This is how it goes: Zhou Mi plants himself in front of their dorm room at 7:40am, knowing well that Kyuhyun has to be out the door by 7:45 to make it to his class. Perfect plan.

When Kyuhyun steps out of the bathroom, blindly grabs his backpack and heads towards the door, Zhou Mi is determined to end this.

"Can we talk?" Zhou Mi asks when Kyuhyun tries to reach the door knob behind his body.

"I have to go to class," Kyuhyun answers without looking at him.

"Don't pretend like you mind missing—"

Kyuhyun doesn't let him finish his sentence. He wants to talk? Well, Kyuhyun will talk.

"I just don't understand why you couldn't tell _me_ , one of your best friends here in Korea and the guy you started dating, about it? All this time I thought you were just a very involved and busy visual communications major but it turns out you were making round-trips between Korea and China for your… idol career?" Kyuhyun has a hard time letting the last two words out.

"Gotta earn those frequent flyer miles—"

"Seriously, Zhou Mi," Kyuhyun cuts him. It's the first time he pronounces his real name and Zhou Mi feels his chest go tight as he hears it.

"Yes, that's what I've been doing. Let me just— give me a chance to explain myself, okay?" Zhou Mi says imploringly. 

Kyuhyun looks at him for the first time this day and blinks. 

"Okay," he says weakly. "Okay."

"I debuted in China when I was in high school and the feedback I received was really unexpected? My agency just wanted to test the waters with me — they had me on a one-year contract with two singles to release and a few live appearances here and there. But then the public liked me, _really_ liked me, or maybe just my voice and songs, I don't know. Things just… went really fast from there. I went from being a high school student releasing a one-off single to working with some of the biggest songwriters of the country to prepare for my first album. Anyway. Fast-forward two years and it's time for me to graduate high school. Going to university and getting a degree has always been one of my life goals and even with my unplanned career and fame, I still really want to go. So I talked about it with management and we figured that if I was ready to travel back and forth between China and Korea, attending school in Korea could actually be a good opportunity for me. I'd get to get a fresh start, without fame attached to my name." 

Zhou Mi trails off and finds Kyuhyun staring at him silently. He takes it as a cue to go on.

"Anyway, we got into some specific details on how to make it work, like me getting a Korean name that sounded close enough to my real name one so it wouldn't feel too weird or even how I'd have totally different styles whether I was promoting or in Korea."

"The fringe," Kyuhyun mumbles.

"What?"

"The fringe, that's… why I was confused as to why you showed up with a fringe one day," Kyuhyun explains.

"Ah yes," Zhou Mi says sheepishly. "I wore my hair down when I was Zhou Mi and had this hipster-ish fashionista style whereas in Korea, I wore my hair up and had to adopt that terrible Korean frat-bro style. I hate wearing tank tops and snapbacks, to be honest."

"I liked the snapbacks on you," Kyuhyun blurts out.

"Thanks, glad someone at least appreciated them."

This cuts down a little bit of the tension present in their change and Kyuhyun's voice is clear and almost relaxed when he talks again.

"I just don't understand why you had to go through all of it? Why was it so important to you to keep 2 separate identities?"

"I just… didn't want people to consider that I was just a celebrity and nothing more. I wanted them to see me as a real person, not just a singer on the rise. Even if my fame was relatively minor in Korea when I started university, it just felt… better for me to do it like this. Obviously this is all in the past now that I also have a Korean career," Zhou Mi sighs. "The idea actually came into their mind just as summer vacation started. They just thought 'hey, why not try to make some money on the Korean markets as well? This kid could succeed over there too' and that was it. I was kind of bummed to have gone through all of these efforts only to have it fall apart and become useless but well. That's show-business, baby."

"Don't call me baby ever again," Kyuhyun deadpans. "But… thanks? For explaining? It's a lot to take in but I— thanks," Kyuhyun finishes lamely.

"Yeah I— take your time if you want to," Zhou Mi offers. "And go to class, you can still make it before the first half-hour is over."

"I will… go to class and think about of all this, yeah," Kyuhyun says distractedly. 

Zhou Mi shoos him out of their room with a smile on his face and a relieved heart. He's almost closed the door when Kyuhyun says: "By the way, I know about the album dedications. You're a sap."

Zhou Mi gasps as the door closes in front of him.

 

*

 

The only reason why they figure it out so quickly is because Kyuhyun calls his sister and actually follows her advice for the first time ever.

"You can't be mad at him," Ahra says over the phone, "he did what he had to to protect his career and his well-being—"

"Okay, okay, I don't want words, I want _action_ ," Kyuhyun interrupts, "tell me what to do."

And Kyuhyun does just that: he comes back from class that day, finds Zhou Mi asleep under the covers, slips in besides him and whispers into his ear: "Can we still date even if you're hot stuff in two countries and I'm just a poor computer science major?"

Zhou Mi opens his eyes at that, shifts as best as he can with Kyuhyun bear-hugging him in a twin-size bed and kisses him. Kyuhyun takes that as a yes.

 

*

 

The booklet of Zhou Mi's first full-length Korean albums features a message dedicated to Kyuhyun nestled in between the mandatory message to all the technical staff that worked on the album and a message dedicated to Sungmin, his make-up artist/stylist/go-to person whenever he has needed to just sit down and talk ever since the beginning of his career.

_To Kuixian: thanks for always looking out for me, thanks for the tuna kimbap, thanks for the post-its — and sorry, again. ♥_

The hidden track on that album quickly becomes a hot topic among netizens, all eager to discover who could be the inspiration behind such an unusual romantic and cheesy song by Zhou Mi's standards.

The only thing Zhou Mi reveals about the song is its title — "Strawberry + Red Bean".


End file.
